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Lxvcpiiuted from The Records of The Columbia Historical Society, 
Vol. 21, 1918.] 



THE EARLIEST PROPRIETORS OF CAPITOL 

HILL. 

By MAEGARET BRENT DOWNING. 
(Read before the Society, January 16, 1917.) 

In the strict historical sense, the earliest proprietors 
of Capitol Hill were the American Indians. But in 
the restricted meaning as deriving title from the Pro- 
prietaiy government of Mainland, the names of George 
Thompson and Thomas Grerrard appear on the records 
as the first owners of that portion of the National City 
which is colloquially known as "Capitol Hill." Under 
the '^ Conditions of Plantations" imposed by the Baron 
of Baltimore under his charter as absolute lord of the 
domain, Thompson and Grerrard in 1662-3 acquired 
title to an extensive acreage which now includes all of 
Capitol Hill, parts of Anacostia and the outlying coun- 
try and a generous slice of the city proper from about 
Ninth and K streets northwest to the Potomac where 
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has been 
erected. Among the several names under which these 
tracts were patented were Duddington Manor and Pas- 
ture, New Tro}^, Blue Plains, Giesborough and St. 
Elizabeth ; the first three on Capitol Hill and the others 
embracing Anacostia and its environs. 

The names of Thompson and Gerrard are linked in 
many early ventures in real estate along the Potomac 
as well as in the older portions of Charles County, for 
in that remote day, the District of Columbia formed 
part of the Province of Maryland which had l)een 
named to honor the King who had granted Lord Balti- 
more his charter. Gerrard, however, previous to his 
2 1 



2 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

Potomac purchase had become involved in the conspi- 
racy of Governor Josias Fendall to proclaim the '^Lit- 
tle Republic of Marji and "and it seemed prudent to dis- 
pose of all remote land holdings. Thompson took over 
his associate's interests and was apparently sole pro- 
prietor, when in November, 1670, he sold the Capitol 
Hill propert}^, Duddington Manor and Pasture, and 
New Troy to Thomas Notley, then attorney and gen- 
eral land agent for Charles Calvert, and afterwards 
Deputy-Governor of Maryland, 1676-79. Notley filed 
the deeds of transfer on November 20, 1670, and he 
relates their names as given by Thompson and Ger- 
rard, namely, the Duddingtons and New Troy. This 
is a strong piece of evidence that the estate of Dud- 
dington, an integral portion of the National Capital, did 
not originate in the Carroll family, as the impression 
universally prevails. It was familiarly known under 
the name of Duddington from 1662-70, and Charles 
Carroll, the immigrant and afterwards Attorney- 
General of the Province, did not land on the shores of 
Maryland until 1688, or twenty- six years later. 

Thomas Notley paid forty thousand pounds of to- 
bacco for the Duddington estate. A few months after 
the purchase, on March 1, 1671, he petitioned the pro- 
vincial court to unite his three tracts into one manorial 
holding, to be known as '' Cerne Abbey Manor." The 
deeds for this grant as well as all subsequent ones may 
be found in chronological order among the Land War- 
rants issued from Saint Mary's City, Maryland's first 
capital, which are now reposing in the State House at 
Annapolis. Thompson, Gerrard and Notley may, 
therefore, be accorded the honor of being the first pro- 
prietors of Capitol Hill under the provincial govern- 
ment of Maryland. The first patent was issued in 
1662, but little more than a quarter of a century after 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 3 

the landing of the Ark and the Dove. To study the 
chronicles relating to Capitol Hill is therefore to turn 
back the leaves of history to the opening chapters of 
Lord Baltimore's Palatinate. 

Few cities of the larger and more cultured class 
have displayed a greater indifference towards the orig- 
inal owners of the land on which it has been built than 
the National Capital. It is within the memory of the 
present generation, when nothing of practical moment 
was known of the proprietors of the Ten Miles Square, 
when the federal government made its memorable pur- 
chase. It is a matter of congratulation to the members 
of the Columbia Historical Society that it is mainly 
due to their efforts that details and incidents of the 
affair, and especially from the personal standpoint, 
have been collected and permanently preserved. But 
the men who owned the land prior to the governmental 
purchase have been, heretofore, mere names on a legal 
document. Their personalities have become merged 
in the uncertainty which shadows their day and the 
general idea is that their acts were too remote to be 
known accurately, and if they could be known, it would 
not prove very valuable information. Yet Thompson, 
Gerrard and Notley wrote their names in large letters 
in the annals of Maryland during the first half cen- 
tury after its settlement. To follow the outline of 
their activities is to sketch a fascinating and histor- 
ically worthy picture of the royal Palatinate during 
the closing years of the seventeenth century. 

Thompson, Gerrard and Notley were members of 
families mentioned in *' Burke's Landed Gentry," with 
estates situated in Somerset and Dorset at points where 
the two shires merge and form one of the loveliest por- 
tions of England's Midlands. In addition to vast es- 
tates, their families possessed ancient lineage and tre- 



4 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

mendous political importance and all three may be 
accepted as types of the aristocratic and refined gentle- 
men of their era who, finding conditions intolerable in 
England, preferred at any sacrifice of their titles and 
possessions, to seek freedom of conscience in the New 
World. Many of the adventurers took this course of 
a necessity, since they had become completely impover- 
ished by religious persecution or the devastating civil 
wars. The ''Conditions of Plantations" offered by 
Lord Baltimore made a wide appeal to those of adven- 
turous trend, as well as to those who sought freedom in 
every sense and with the added hope of retrieving their 
fortunes. It is assumed that the history of Maryland 
is accepted as that of a royal Palatinate, boasting a 
landed gentry, with all the privileges of the class and 
that it was never at any time a penal settlement or the 
resort of felons. Nor was it peopled through any phi- 
lanthropic project of the Crown. Hester Dorsey Rich- 
ardson in her admirable work, ' ' Side-Lights on Mary- 
land History," cites an example of the indigestible in- 
tellectual food which the St. Nicholas Magazine can 
serve on occasion to its juvenile readers. According to 
Mrs. Richardson, Hezekiah Butterworth wrote a sketch 
of Maryland of which the subjoined is the opening 
paragraph : 

"King Charles I, you remember, founded a colony in this 
country in very early times in honor of his young and beau- 
tiful Queen Henrietta Maria. He called it Terra Mariea or 
Maryland. He gathered fifteen hundred orphan children 
from the streets of London and sent them to Maryland, and 
there those early settlers loved to hear and recount the leg- 
ends of the court of Charles." 

As Mrs. Richardson remarks, the veriest tyro at his- 
tory knows that Charles I did not settle Maryland, but 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 5 

that honor belongs to Cecilius Calvert, who at his own 
expense sent a goodly company to the Province in 1633. 
George Thompson, the first of the original proprie- 
tors of Capitol Hill, was undoubtedly the son of that 
pioneer, John Thompson, who came over in the Ark 
and who took out land in the same company with the 
Reverend Andrew White, the Jesuit missionary, and 
others whose names have become historical. The 
elder Thompson made his will in 1648 and left the 
landed portion of his property to his son, George. 
For forty years after this pious will was probated the 
name of George Thompson is familiar to those who 
peruse the court records or the Acts of the Provincial 
Assembly. Thompson was an eloquent pleader before 
the Provincial Court and apparently he represented 
the legal interests of Thomas Gerrard who was a sur- 
geon, and Thomas Notley, who was an attorney and 
land-agent. Thompson makes hundreds of appear- 
ances in the court records during the tedious legal bat- 
tles which his brother-in-law, Raymond Stapleford, 
waged against Lord Baltimore's authority. He was 
the executor of this pioneer litigant's will and a bene- 
ficiary under it. In addition to what must have been 
a lucrative legal practice, Thompson was engaged in 
commercial pursuits, such as exchanging land for sta- 
ples which he could ship to England, as for instance his 
little flj^er in tobacco with Thomas Notley. He had 
heavy interests in ships bearing commerce from Vir- 
ginia, Maryland and the West Indies to English and 
European ports. He presents two interesting aspects 
in the personal sense. He must be given priority over 
all other speculators in real estate on the Maryland 
side of the Potomac, and since he charged Notley forty 
thousand pounds of tobacco for the grant and as much 
of this had still to be raised, he leads the list of specu- 



6 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

lators in nicotine futures. He conferred the name 
St. Elizabeth on the lovely wooded hills above the Ana- 
costia River, and it is worthy of note that of all the 
colonial names given to the estates which are now the 
National City, this alone survives in its original situa- 
tion and gives title to the Government Hospital of the 
Insane. 

Dr. Thomas Gerrard is a name which fairly bristles 
on Provincial pages. He plays a variety of roles. He 
was one of the earliest and most successful "chirur- 
geons" in Maryland and when he was banished for par- 
ticipating in Fendall's rebellion, he established himself 
in Virginia and made a large fortune attending the 
gentry of Jamestown and thereabout. Dr. Gerrard 
was the lord of St. Clement's Manor and there he pre- 
sided over the Court Baron and his steward held the 
Court Leet after the prevailing custom in England. 
The records of these courts at St. Clement's Manor 
are the only ones which are in existence, though the 
authorities hold that all the great manorial lords en- 
joyed similar privileges. Bromly, the splendid manor 
house of St. Clement 's, was built of brick made on the 
estate by retainers of Dr. Gerrard after he had brought 
out from England some skilled artisans with their 
moulds and other appliances. He was one of the ear- 
liest brickmakers in Maryland and did a thriving busi- 
ness, selling to less provident lords who wished to erect 
handsome homes without the trouble of maintaining 
kilns. Bromly was a renowned social center and fig- 
ures in the annals perhaps more frequently than any 
contemporary house except those occupied by the Pro- 
prietor or his family. Gerrard was a rigid Catholic 
and he is the figure always produced to bear evidence 
of the broad religious toleration of Maryland's charter. 
He was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco for lock- 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 7 

ing the chapel at St. Mary's, and refusing to open it 
in time for Protestant service. It was at Bromly that 
the first Declaration of Independence was voiced in the 
western world, when Josias Fendall threw off allegi- 
ance to Lord Baltimore and proclaimed Maryland free 
and independent. Grerrard adhered to the faith of his 
fathers most tenaciously, but his daughters married 
men who were equally zealous on the Protestant side. 
The elder was the wife of that Nehemiah Blackiston 
for whom was named that beautiful island in the Poto- 
mac, long a resort of Washingtonians. The other mar- 
ried John Coode, leader of the Protestant army which 
besieged Saint Mary's City and caused its capitulation. 
Thomas Notley appears on the records of 1660, about 
the time that Charles Calvert arrived in the Province 
to act as Grovernor in behalf of his father, Cecilius, 
second Baron of Baltimore. It is a logical supposition 
that Charles Calvert and Notley had been on terms of 
friendship in London and that the departure of the 
former furnished the reason of the latter 's venture into 
the wilds of Maryland. Notley belonged to that illus- 
trious family of Dorset, the Sydenhams of Coombe, his 
being the cadet branch of that ancient barony. His 
arms were: 

Argent — Three bezants on a bend cotised. 
Or — First and fourth quarterly. 

Crest — A lion's head from a mural. 

Motto— Noli Mentire. 

The Sydenhams were nobles in 1275. The clironi- 
cles of Dorset contain many a thrilling tale of their 
prowess in the holy wars, and their achievements and 
possessions make entire chapters in the annals of that 
shire. They counted heroes galore in the Crusades 
and the wars of the Roses and with France and in the 



8 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

succeeding civil strife. Nor was their fame wholly 
martial, for Doctor Sir Thomas Sydenham was among 
the colleagues of William Harvey, discoverer of the 
theory of the circulation of the blood, and was his im- 
mediate successor as head of the London College of 
Surgery. Another Thomas Sydenham, a near kins- 
man of Thomas Notley, was an eloquent archdeacon 
of the Church of England and quite a court favorite. 
Among the records of Sydenham estates in the opening 
seventeenth century, is one which throws a clear light 
on the name which Notley chose for his Potomac 
manor. It is to be found in Hutchins' "History of 
Dorset ' ' under the subhead of the domain of the Syden- 
hams of Combe, and says: 

''The Manor of Cerne Abbey. 

"When or by whom it was given does not appear. 19 Ed- 
ward, the Abbot had a grant of one shilling in land here. 
In 1293, the temporalities of the Abbot of Cerne in Winifred 
E.agle were valued at sixty-four shillings and four pence. 36 
Henry VIII., this manor had farms belonging to the Abbot 
of Cerne, which were granted to Richard Buekland and 
Robert Homer, who 37 Henry VIII. had license to alienate 
to Thomas Sydenham Esquire, gentleman and his heirs ; value 
four pounds and three shillings."^ 

The Sydenhams had obtained control of the Abbey 
lands of Cerne many years previous to the time of 
Notley, and as a boy, he may have played on the 
old Abbey lands and a touch of homesickness have sug- 
gested the name. It may be, as some have deemed 
probable, he was an admirer of the renowned Aelfric, 
the grammarian, once Abbot of Cerne and sought to 
perpetuate his memory in the New World. The origin 
of the name Duddington can be_ clearly traced by fol- 

1 Hutchins' "History of Dorset," Vol. 2, p. 706. Westminster, 1868. 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 9 

lowing the lineage of Thompson and Gerrard through 
the labj'rinths of "Burke's Peerage and Landed Gen- 
try." There was on the earliest records of Somerset 
and Dorset, a noble family of Doddington with a cele- 
brated countrj^ seat, Doddington Manor. As Gerrards 
and Thompsons, Sydenhams and Notleys had inter- 
married with the Doddingtons for nearly two hundred 
recorded years, it is evident that the first proprietors, 
Thompson and Gerrard, had this famous seat of their 
family in mind, when they took out patents for the land 
on the Potomac, on which subsequently was erected 
the noble national Hall of Legislation, the stately Li- 
brary of Congress and several other imposing Federal 
buildings. That the Manor in Somerset is spelled 
Doddington does not confuse the issue, since this dis- 
crepancy may be easily explained as the error of the 
registering clerk, as the " o " in London and in Monroe 
is pronounced as though it were "u" and there is the 
familiar illustration, typically British, saying ''His 
Lu'dship" for His Lordship, as Americans and the 
remainder of the world would do. It must be borne in 
mind that in the early part of the seventeenth century 
the families of Thompson and Gerrard held estates 
contiguous to Doddington. 

Notley had no special reason to perpetuate the name 
of Doddington, so very naturally he fixed on some re- 
nowned holding in his own immediate line and changed 
the Doddington estate to Cerne Abbey Manor. It is 
under this appellation that the grant figures in that 
well-known legal document which is the key to clear 
titles to all properties situated on and about Capitol 
Hill. This was the will of Thomas Notley, dated April 
3, 1679. As the sole landed bequest mentioned in a 
great mass of personal legacies, he leaves Cerne Abbey 
Manor to his godson, Notley Rozier, son of Colonel 



10 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

Benjamin Rozier and his wife. This lady was Anne 
Sewall, daughter of Jane, second wife of Charles Cal- 
vert, third Baron of Baltimore. Notley was Deputy- 
Governor of the Province from 1676 until his death 
three years later. During this period he had disposed 
of nearly all his landed estates. Lord Baltimore being 
in almost every instance the purchaser. The Proprie- 
tary became owner of the celebrated country seat on 
the Wicomico River, Notley Hall, a splendid home 
mentioned in the social annals of the Province from 
1668 until late in the eighteenth century, when it was 
probably destroyed by fire. In the earliest chronicles 
of Georgetown College there are recurring permissions 
granted young seminarians from Whitemarsh to stop 
at Notley Hall and partake of its hospitality while en 
route to the college on the Potomac. 

Notley Rozier, heir of Cerne Abbey Manor under the 
will of Governor Notley, was apparently reared by his 
grandmother. Lady Baltimore, at Notley Hall, the fa- 
vorite estate of his godfather and benefactor. Colonel 
Benjamin Rozier died soon after his friend and asso- 
ciate at the council table of the Lord Proprietor, and 
his widow married Colonel Edward Pye and went to 
preside over another stately home. When Notley 
Rozier 's only surviving daughter and heiress, Ann, 
married Daniel Carroll, second son of Charles Carroll, 
the immigrant and Attorney-General of the Province, 
the bride is described in social annals of the day as of 
Notley Hall. Notley Rozier, reared in the mimic court 
of the third Lord Baltimore, was no doubt a local ce- 
lebrity in his era, but mere fragments have floated 
down to this age as to his importance in the political 
sense in his step-grandfather's councils. He had mar- 
ried young, as nearly all colonial lords did, and his first 
cousin, another custom of the Maryland aristocracy. 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 11 

His wife was Jane, one of tlie several daughters of 
William Digges, of Warburton Manor, and Elizabeth 
Sewall Wharton. This lady was the sister of Jane 
Sewall, who became the wife of Colonel Benjamin 
Eozier and of Nicholas Sewall, all children of the 
second Lad,y Baltimore. Previous to her alliance with 
William Digges she had married Dr. Jesse Wharton, 
of Virginia, and in 1675 Deputy-Governor of Mary- 
land, a well-known medico at the residence of Sir Ed- 
ward Digges, governor of the royal colony. 

William Digges and Elizabeth Sewall Wharton had 
ten children and their descendants may be found in 
many states. The Lord of Warburton was the eldest 
son of Sir Edward Digges, an appointee and loyal ad- 
herent of the Stuarts, who had acquired a splendid 
estate at Bellefield, Virginia. A handsome tomb, still 
in excellent preservation, tells that he was the son of 
Sir Dudley Digges,Knight and Baronet of Kent, Master 
of Rolls under Charles I. This Dudley Ddgges, for the 
name is multiplied in the colonial records of Maryland 
and in the English chronicles of the line, was the author 
of the celebrated book, ^'The Compleat Ambassador," 
which in its day enjoj^ed great prestige and popularity 
as containing an epitome of the polite accomplishments 
necessary in court circles and comparable only to that 
earlier work, ''The Courtier or the Golden Book," by 
Baldassare Castigloione, and considered a classic of 
the sixteenth century. Jane Digges brought to her 
husband, Notley Rozier, as dower one thousand acres, 
which lay across the Anacostia River and known as 
Elizabeth's Delight. It was adjacent to Giesborough 
and Blue Plains, which later became part of the patri- 
mony of Notley Young. Rozier was, April 19, 1714, 
by the will of Edward Digges, eldest son and chief heir 
of William, affectionatelv called brother and made the 



12 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

executor of that instrument in which full title to Eliza- 
beth's Delight is made over to him and his wife Jane. 
Ann Rozier, for the name is so spelled in connection 
with her marriage to Daniel Carroll, and which should 
have always been so written, since it was French, fur- 
nishes another of those familiar examples of colonial 
widows who captivate a second lord after less than a 
year of mourning. No more fascinating phases of that 
early day in Maryland's chronicles exist than those 
caught in snatches of letters which are preserved in 
many a horsehair trunk in the older counties, wherein 
it is related that cousin this and that had sent to Lon- 
don for a widow's complete garb and that she looked 
so bewitching in the weeds that she cast them aside, 
after a few wearings, for a new bridal trousseau. This 
may explain why mourning suits, mourning jewelry 
and other emblems of bereavement figure as assets in 
so many colonial wills. Ann Rozier Carroll, after less 
than a year of sorrow for her young husband, who was 
not twenty-eight when he died, married Colonel Ben- 
jamin Young, a Commissioner of Crown Lands, who 
had come to the Province about 1735. Though she 
is described in the narration of her first marriage 
as the heiress of Notley Hall, she was also sole heiress 
of Cerne Abbey Manor. From court records, it is 
known that she had built a commodious mansion on the 
Potomac estate prior to 1758, for in a petition made 
in that year she asks permission to retain title to it, 
though by the same instrument she is dividing her 
legacy from Governor Thomas Notley equally between 
her two sons, Charles Carroll and Notley Young. By 
this division, Cerne Abbey Manor was divided into the 
original tracts which Notley had purchased from 
George Thompson, nearly a century before. Charles 
Carroll, the older son, received the Duddington tracts, 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 13 

Manor and Pasture, and other parcels on Capitol Hill. 
Notley Young's inheritance included the land and ad- 
joining acres on which his mother's home was built, 
parts of New Troy and a vast area across the Ana- 
costia River, including Giesborough and Blue Plains. 
Giesborough in later years was made over as a legacy 
to the Fathers at Georgetown and proved so heavy a 
burden on their slender resources that they permitted 
it to be sold for taxes. It is obvious that Duddington, 
whether meant for Doddington in Somerset or some 
other obscure holding of Thompson and Gerrard which 
has become untraceable after this lapse of time, had 
no connection whatever with the Carroll family until 
Daniel married Notley Rozer's heiress. It is mislead- 
ing and untrue to describe that Daniel Carroll who 
was the husband of Ann Rozier, as the first of the Dud- 
dington branch. Charles Carroll, who is called as of 
Carrollsburgh to distinguish him from his eminent 
cousin, the Signer, might be so called, and so also his 
son, Daniel Carroll, who later built a mansion which 
he called Duddington Manor. This Charles Carroll 
and Daniel Carroll inherited directly from the daughter 
of Notley Rozer, who inherited by will the estate which 
Governor Notley had purchased from Thompson in 
1670. 

Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, great grandson of 
Notley Rozer, and Notley Young, his grandson, were 
the last owners of Capitol Hill in the manorial sense. 
They disposed of their rights to the Commissioners 
who represented President Washington, and for the 
worthy purpose of securing a site for the permanent 
seat of government. The negotiations which led to 
tliis transfer of ownership began in 1790, but were not 
brought to a successful issue until a year later. It may 
be timelv to remark that the numerous Daniel Carrolls 



14 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

who figure in the annals at this particular time hav^e 
led to some amazing blunders. An historian with 
every facility to reach authentic sources is the former 
pastor of St. Patrick's church in Washington City and 
now the Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina. Yet in 
his work, ''The Land of Sanctuary," Bishop Russell 
subjoins a Carroll family tree which could not have 
been founded on recognized genealogical charts, for 
among other easily detected errors it is shown that 
Daniel Carroll of Duddington was the brother of the 
Archbishop and identical with the Commissioner who 
acted with Thomas Johnson and David Stuart. As 
Daniel Carroll of Duddington sold one of the largest 
and most valuable portions of the Capital City, it is 
plain he did not sell to himself. This same mistake 
is several times repeated in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 
a publication where the reader would logically expect 
historical accuracy in this vital point of Catholic asso- 
ciation with the founding of the National Capital. 
Under the caption of Daniel Carroll, Thomas F. 
Meehan writes that Daniel Carroll, brother of the 
Archbishop, was born in Upper Marlborough in 1733 
and died in Washington in 1829, whereas he was, as 
many Carroll family papers show and all of which are 
accessible to historical students, born in 1737 and died 
at his home near Rock Creek on May 6, 1796, less than 
sixty years of age, instead of nearing the century 
mark, as Mr. Meehan makes him. 

Members of the Columbia Historical Society will 
be further astounded by perusing Mr. Meehan 's biog- 
raphy of Daniel Carroll, the Commissioner. 

"The choice of the present site of Washington was advo- 
cated by him and he owned one of the four farms taken for 
it, Notley Young, David Burns and Samuel Davidson being 
the others interested. The Capitol was built on the land 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 15 

transferred to the government by, Carroll and there is ad- 
ditional interest to Catholdes in the fact that in 1663, this 
whole section of country belonged to a man named Pope who 
called it Rome/' 

It is to be hoped that should the Encyclopedia issue a 
second edition, this remarkable collection of errors will 
be eliminated in favor of the facts. But since the au- 
thorized history of the American branch of the 'Car- 
rolls of Ely, published under the auspices of the late 
Governor Carroll, of Maryland, contains the state- 
ment that Daniel Carroll the Commissioner was the 
Daniel Carroll of Duddingion who built the mansion 
in the new Federal City, lesser fish in the historical 
line may be pardoned for following what seemed the 
last clue through the bewildering labyrinths of ge- 
nealogy.- Daniel Carroll, who figures as grantor 
in the deeds which gave the Federal government 
title to the estate inherited from the will of Governor 
Notley, may be traced back to the immigrant of his 
line, Charles Carroll, the Attorney-General, his great 
grandfather. His grandfather was that Daniel Car- 
roll who married Ann Rozier and his father was the 
older son of that lady, Charles Carroll, of Carroll s- 
burg. He is, therefore, of the younger branch of the 
Carrolls of Doughreagan Manor and was the second 
cousin of the Signer. Through his mother he was the 
great-grandson of Notley Rozer and was therefore 
closely akin to the most illustrious families in the 
Province, the Sewalls of Mattapony, the Digges of 
Warburton, the Lowes, Darnalls and Hills. Daniel 
Carroll, the Commissioner, was the son of Daniel Car- 
roll of Upper Marlborough, the immigrant in his line 

2 Rowland, ' ' Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrolton, ' ' 
Vol. 11, p. 441. 



16 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

of Carroll s. There is no convincing evidence that this 
Daniel Carroll came of the line of Carrolls of Ely, rep- 
resented by Charles Carroll, who was later Attorney- 
General. But it is clear that the two men were 
friendly. Shortly after Daniel Carroll had established 
a successful business enterprise in Marlborough about 
1720, he married an heiress and well-known provincial 
belle, Eleanor Darnall of Woodyard, Maryland. The 
gentry drew sharp class divisions against the business 
and agricultural class and it is safe to assume that the 
young merchant of Upper Marlborough would never 
have penetrated into the circle which his lady graced 
had he not been presented by a powerful sponsor. 
That Charles Carroll had married Mary Darnall, aunt 
of Eleanor, points unerringly to the clever matchmaker. 
Daniel of Marlborough left two sons who survived 
to manhood, Daniel of Rock Creek, who was Associate 
Commissioner of the District of Columbia with Judge 
Thomas Johnson and Doctor David Stuart, and John, 
who became first Archbishoi^ of Baltimore. There 
were four daughters, two of whom, Anne and Eleanor, 
married into the Brent family of Woodstock, Acquia 
Creek, descendants of George Brent, the immigrant 
who settled in Virginia in 1672, Mary, who became the 
second wife of Notley Young, and Elizabeth, a spinster. 
Elizabeth Carroll was the last survivor of her family 
and on March 16, 1810, she made a deposition before 
her nephew, Robert Brent, first mayor of Washington, 
which is now part of the Catholic archives of the Uni- 
versity of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. To this 
paper and to others written by various members of the 
Carroll family of Marlborough or of Rock Creek and 
to the older branch more intimately connected with the 
ownership of the Ten Miles Square I am indebted for 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 17 

such original data as is here presented for the first 
time in concrete form.^ 

3 Carroll Papers, Catholic Archives of Notre Dame. "Deposition of 
Elizabeth Carroll, spinster, taken in the City of Washington, D. C, March 
16, 1810." 

' ' Said Elizabeth Carroll, aged sixty-five, in the city of Washington on 
the sixteenth day of March, one thousand eight hundred and ten, before 
Robert Brent, Esquire, Mayor of the city of Washington aforesaid; and 
said Elizabeth Carroll being first duly cautioned and sworn upon the Holy 
Evangelists of Almighty God, by said Mayor did then and there upon her 
oath aforesaid testify and depose as follows, viz : 

"That she is the daughter of Daniel Carroll of Upper Marlboro in the 
State of Maryland and Eleanor, his wife; that she recollects her said 
father who died as she believes and always has understood in the year of 
our Lord seventeen hundred and fifty; that the said Daniel Carroll, as 
she has likewise always understood and believed, was the son of Keane 
Carroll of Ireland, and that as she has also understood and believed, he 
emigrated to this country from Ireland some time before he married her 
mother, whose maiden name was Darnall ; that the said Daniel Carroll and 
Eleanor had several children all of whom are dead, except the deponent 
and her brother, the Right Rev. Dr. John Carroll, Bishop of Baltimore and 
Mrs. Mary Young, her sister ; that Henry, the oldest son, as she has heard, 
was drowned some time before her birth, when he was a boy at school 
and many years before the death of his father; that Daniel, the second 
son departed this life on the sixth day of May in the year of our Lord, 
one thousand seven hundred and ninety six in the sixtieth year, as she 
believes, of his age; that the said Daniel Carroll intermarried with 
Eleanor Carroll, the sister of the present Mrs. Mary Digges, and had 
from this marriage two children whose names were Daniel and Mary, and 
none others than those two; that both these two died before their said 
father several years; but this deponent doth not recollect the precise 
period of the death of either of them ; that Daniel the son of the brother 
just mentioned intermarried with Elizabeth Digges of Warburton in the 
year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and seventy six, this deponent being 
present at the marriage, and that he had issue from this marriage several 
children of whom William Carroll is the oldest surviving son; that the 
surviving children are all single and unmarried and that no one of them, 
either of those who are dead, or of those who survive has ever been mar- 
ried; that the said William was born as she perfectly recollects, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty two; and that 
as she has always heard and believes neither of the three Daniels men- 
tioned and particularly referred to by this deponent was ever married a 
second time." 

Ibid., Carroll Papers. Extract of a letter from Daniel Carroll of Rock 
3 



18 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

A point of interest wliicli always recurs when the 
earliest proprietors of Capitol Hill are under consid- 

Oreek to James Carroll of Ireland, dated Upper Marlborough, Maryland, 
December 20, 1762, and presented by Miss J. Carroll. 

"As you express a particular desire of having a particular account of 
your relations in this part of the world, the following may be agreeable 
to you. My father died in the year 1751 and left six children, — myself, 
Ann, John, E. W., Mary and Betsy. He left me land amounting in value 
between 4 & 5000 pounds. Some time after I was married to a lady of our 
name, E. W. Carroll to whom I was contracted before my father's death. 
Her fortune was 3000 pounds in money. I had been returned two years 
from Flanders where my father had sent me for my education, and had 
been there for six years. I have a son named Daniel about ten years old 
and a daughter named Mary about eight years old. The lady I married 
is a daughter of Daniel Carroll, son of Charles Carroll, Esq. of Littertone 
who came from Ireland and settled in this country. His abilities and 
prudent conduct procured him some of the best offices under this govern- 
ment, for then Eoman Catholics were entitled to hold place in this prov- 
ince. By this means, his knowledge of the law and by taking up large 
tracts of land which have since increased in value some hundred per cent 
he made a very large fortune — ^two of his sons only survived out of a 
great many children — Charles and Daniel — the latter my wife's father, 
who died in the year 1734 and left three children, Charles, E. W. (my 
wife), and Mary. Charles inherits about 600 pounds per annum — will 
not probably marry and Mary is married to one Mr. Ignatius Digges. 
Charles Carroll, Esq., eldest brother to my wife's father is living and is 
worth about 100,000 pounds and second richest man in our province. He 
has one son named Charles who has a very liberal education and now 
finishing his studies in London. In case of his death that estate is left 
to my son, Daniel by Charles Carroll, Esq. My eldest sister, Ann is well 
married to one Mr. Eobert Brent in Virginia, a province to the Northward. 
of this, divided by the river Potomac. He lives about 60 miles from us. 
They have one child named George. My brother John was sent abroad for 
his education on my return and is now a Jesuit at Liege, teaching Phi- 
losophy and emminent in his profession. E. W., my second sister is mar- 
ried, likewise very well to one Mr. William Brent in Virginia, near my 
eldest sister. She lias three boys and one girl. My sisterSj^JIaJX-SSi 
Betsex^are un marr ied and live chiefly with my mother who is very well. 
This account of your friends I hope will be satisfactory to you. [But, 
as frequently happens, Charles, brother of E. W., wife of Daniel Carroll of 
Eock Creek, did not realize the hopes which his relatives placed in him. 
He is identical with that Charles Carroll, known as of CarroUsburgh, who 
married the daughter of Henry Hill, Esquire, of Baltimore, and became 
the father of Daniel Carroll of Duddington, Charles Carroll of Bellevue 
and Henry Hill Carroll of Litterluna, near the city of Baltimore."] 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 19 

eration is the identity of the mysterious Jenkins of 
Jenkins' Hill, who figaires in every description of the 
tract during the transaction which finally converted it 
into Federal property. Jenkins' Heights probably is 
mentioned for the first time in a chatty letter which 
Eight Reverend John Carroll wrote in 1784 to his 
English Superior, in which he tells that his young 
kinsman, Daniel Carroll of Duddington had proposed 
this eminence as a suitable position for the College 
which is now an ornament of the older of the two 
cities in the District of Columbia, Georgetown. Bishop 
Carroll's letter is recalled in a charming retrospect 
of the College in a paper read before the Society 
by Rev. Edward I. Devitt, S. J., in 1909 ; and he relates 
that the future Primate of the American Catholic 
Church did not realize the possibilities which L 'Enfant 
saw in this hill. He declined Daniel of Duddington 's 
gift because the spot was too far away in the woods to 
make a thriving boarding school for boys. President 
Washington alludes to Jenkins' Hill in a stately de- 
scription sent to Major L 'Enfant in 1791 in a detailed 
description of the boundaries of the Federal territory. 
This occurs in the letter sent from Mount Vernon by 
the President to his representative on the ground, 
L 'Enfant, and he designates the spot beyond all reason 
of misapprehension. The seat of government is to be 
built on "lands lying between Rock Creek, to the Po- 
tomac River and the Eastern Branch and as far up the 
latter as the turn of the channel above Evans' Point, 
thence including the flat, back of Jenkins' Hill."^ I 
am indebted to Mr. Allen C. Clark for the only obtain- 
able data extant about the Jenkins who resided on the 
domain of Cerne Abbey Manor at the time it passed 
under governmental control. In a letter recently re- 

4 Records of Columbia Historical Society, Writings of Washington 
Eelating to the National Capital, Vol. 17, p. 23. 



20 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 

ceived from Mr. Clark he states no title of ownership 
was at any time vested in Jenkins. Christian Hines 
one of Washington's earliest historians, is the author- 
ity that a Thomas Jenkins leased a farm from the 
Carroll estate of Duddington and that the confines of 
this rural plot could be described as commencing some- 
where about H Street North and Seventh Street West. 
Hines' description of this plantation indicates that it 
is the estate known as Fort Eoyal, acquired in 1794 by 
Dominic LjTich and Comfort Sands. It was consid- 
ered a valuable jDroperty even in those remote days, 
and Lynch and Sands paid more than $40,000 for the 
title. Apparently it was one of the most flourishing 
and i^roductive tobacco and general produce planta- 
tions hereabout and had been in continual cultivation 
for several years before the Eevolutionary War. Jen- 
kins possessed a mansion which figures at the time of 
the Federal purchase and this was located in the same 
block as the Union Labor Building now stands or ad- 
jacent to New York Avenue near Ninth Street. There 
was a record of small houses standing in 1791, but 
there was none on the hill where the United States 
Capitol overlooks the city and the exact reason that 
the name Jenkins is continually associated with this 
hallowed spot remains to be explained. 

The connecting link between the old and new pro- 
prietors of Capitol Hill is the brilliant, dashing but 
irascible French engineer, Charles Pierre L 'Enfant. 
It was his genius whicli transformed the woodland of 
ThomiDson and Gerrard and Notley and the tobacco 
farms of the Carrolls and the Youngs into the splendid 
panorama of boulevards and parks and provided a 
fitting site for the buildings which adorn the Capital 
of the great North American Republic. The Columbia 
Historical Society played a stellar role in the long- 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 21 

drawn-out drama wliicli preceded the act of justice 
paid to the French patriot, when his ashes were re- 
moved from Green Hill and laid under a granite block 
on the western hills of Arlington. From every view- 
point, members of this Society have laid bare the truth 
about L 'Enfant and the monstrous injustice from 
which he suffered living and dead. A finer tribute was 
never paid than that in Mr. Glenn Brown's paper read 
in 1909 on ''The Plan of L 'Enfant for the City of 
Washington and its Effect upon the Future Develop- 
ment of the city. ' ' In this, among scores of other popu- 
lar fallacies, this eminent architect who has accom- 
plished a fair share in beautifuing the National Capi- 
tal, showed how erroneous was the statement that 
L 'Enfant had taken the boulevards of Paris as the 
model of his plan. L 'Enfant submitted his map in 
1791 and all the world knows that Napoleon com- 
manded the work of remodelling the French capital 
along its modern magnificent lines. But in 1791 the 
figure of the great Corsican has not 3^et darkened the 
pages of history. Mr. Brown showed how largely 
L 'Enfant 's plan was original, but if it were reminis- 
cent of anything he had known, Versailles, the court 
city, presented some points of resemblance. The 
French ambassador has recently placed the American 
nation under a lasting obligation for his exertions to 
draw aside the veil which surrounded the antecedents 
of the brilliant engineer. In that delightful book, 
"With Great Americans Past and Present," he de- 
votes two lengthy chapters to Washington's founder, 
giving, in the first, the personal side of the man who 
played such a complex role in Revolutionary history 
with his military career amplified more satisfactorily 
than hitherto, and in the second, an adequate and tact- 
ful narration of L 'Enfant 's part in the upbuilding of 



.22 Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 

one of the world's most beautiful cities. Dr. James 
Dudley Morgan on May 11, 1911, read before the Co- 
lumbia Historical Society a paper descriptive of the 
reinterment of the brilliant French patriot from the 
passing of the Sundry Civil Bill authorizing the re- 
moval of the hallowed ashes from the lonely spot in 
Green Hill to the last taps at Arlington, where he had 
been laid among the nation's heroes to await the 
Eesurrection. But it may not be amiss to trace briefly 
the principal reasons which led to the national recogni- 
tion after almost a century of neglect. The past quar- 
ter of a century has witnessed the renaissance of 
American history, of which the visible tokens are the 
many patriotic societies. Sons and Daughters of the 
American Revolution, par excellence, and at least a 
dozen others of varying degrees of influence. Histori- 
cal novels multiplied themselves, and that splendid 
crusade for good roads has led to the marking of 
sacred places on the highwaj^s of the national progress 
and to the erection of monuments to the path blazers 
of the early day. To this general trend towards his- 
torical truth must be assigned the final success of an 
effort which had gone forward for nearly fifty years 
looking to the full reparation to L'Enf ant's memory 
and his restoration to his proper place as a jDatriot, an 
artist and an engineer. The last decade has seen 
another equally important historical recognition of 
eminent services rendered the Republic in its infant 
days, the belated honors paid to John Paul Jones and 
his imposing interment at Annapolis, traceable di- 
rectly to the impetus given such measures by patriotic 
societies and the steady stream of historical romances 
pouring out to the public after ''Richard Carvel." 
Members of this society have regarded the reparation 
to L 'Enfant as a solemn obligation, and paper after 



Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 23 

paper recording his claims to national honors have 
been read at its meetings. Bnt the impetus given the 
cause by the letter which Right Reverend D. J. 'Con- 
nell, then rector of the Catholic University of America, 
now Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, wrote the Commis- 
sioners of the District of Columbia cannot be dis- 
counted. Bishop 'Connell asked that since the grave 
of L 'Enfant was neglected and inaccessible to the 
public, he might be accorded the privilege of removing 
them to a worthy mausoleum which he would erect on 
the campus of his university. This request focused 
all the scattered forces in the Institute of American 
Architects, in the patriotic societies, in the Columbia 
Historical Society and among men and women gener- 
ally of broad patriotic impulses, and the result happily 
met the desires of all interested. The orator of that 
solemn occasion when L 'Enfant was placed to rest on 
the brow of the hill directly overlooking the Capital 
City was M. Jusserand, who was six years later to 
become his biographer. Though a marble sarcopha- 
gus marks the spot, the stone was useless, since, as M., 
Jusserand said, ''His monument is your beautifu! 
citv." 



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